As I write, this Monday, I am sipping on some tea liqueur (red tea, without milk and sugar) watching red flowers sway at an arms' distance. Flowers are in bloom in orange, and white, and yellow too. There are a countless stars up in the sky. By sunlight too, the moon is out. The sky is often flawlessly clear, except for today, when it was swirled with strokes of white. I am in Silchar, Assam. About a ten hour ride, from Shillong, which you may have heard of.
We are staying at beautiful, colonial era white-washed bungalow at the Aenakhal Tea Estate. Acres and acres of tea bushes surround us. In Assam there are bamboo, and paper plantations in abundance, too. Along drives, we find paddy fields, and vegetable patches, and cows, and buffaloes, and mud houses, and ducks, and rivers dried up from time. There are few churches in Assam, there are many temples- the Tea Estates are often named after Hindu Gods. We learn, little by little of the thousand tea estates in the area.
Each function like a self-sustained town. With a huge tea garden, its land amassing small cities, and a factory. Managers, and Assistant Managers, and laborers all have houses according to their salary structure. Much of Assam's infrastructure remains unaffected through time...
Managers stay in bungalows the size of club houses, with tennis courts, and swimming pools, and lush lawns, and fifteen servants. The crowd meets at the Longwai Valley Club, where they play Lotto off the same circular dispenser used many years ago. There is a cot, with a net that is as many years old...and the washroom too bears the exact resemblance to the luxury it held many years ago...the card tables come with glass holders.
And, there are fireplaces, and snooker tables, and towel racks, and slouch chairs, and swings...characteristic of the British era in India. There are even books riddled with termites, and dust, and signatures from the time...
We take many cups of chai, as we savour this beautiful, new place. So many legacies, and so many stories lie behind a humble cup of chai...And, so many picturesque sunsets too, I think. As we sit upon a hillock and watch the sun go down the horizon..disappear into the surrounding hills...
...I realize, this Monday, what a beautiful, unfathomable world we live in...
[More Monday Musings here ]
Monday, January 25, 2010
Monday, January 18, 2010
Monday Musings - 31
Some Mondays aren't beginnings, but ends. Ends to another beautiful week in the city of Mumbai. Ends to a road long travelled. Ends to the familiar. As I say goodbye to yet another friend vacationing in Mumbai, I leave a little part of me in this city. A little part of us in the city. Down a jagged, over familiar street in Bandra. By a narrow, dark street in Oshiwara littered with stray dogs. And, a little garden...our favourite night haunt. Friends, they make life so joyous.
And, then I think about how friendships evolve over time. Even as sometimes we are afraid as distances and circumstances change, I think it will be alright. I see my Father, and his closest friends from long ago. He has such special, unique equations with each of them. One friend who lives many miles away, and him keep in touch on Email. An Email a day, for the last 15 years. And, another he finds just where he left off, at the Derby- young boys watching horses gallop to the finishing line...
But, life comes without a finishing line, doesn't it? There is no one goal we are chasing. I wonder if we realize that. With money too...
On Friday night though, as I am sitting...the chatter of an oncoming weekend fills the air at a local restaurant. Kebabs on skewers, and dying fires flurry themselves about tables...and here is a meal that costs money. A quiet, comfortable evening with family that comes at a price. And, I think, what a humbling moment. And, what a moment to learn that even money does help us share happiness, sometimes...
I find an unexplainable joy in being able to share money, just sometimes...especially with the very people who've allowed so much of our lives. Will I be able to ever give. No just give back...but give at all.
I do not know. I do not know many answers this Monday night. I am perhaps in a whirlwind of emotions...a flurry of goodbyes...and off to a promising holiday to the hills of Assam.
Chai, anybody?
[More Monday Musings here ]
And, then I think about how friendships evolve over time. Even as sometimes we are afraid as distances and circumstances change, I think it will be alright. I see my Father, and his closest friends from long ago. He has such special, unique equations with each of them. One friend who lives many miles away, and him keep in touch on Email. An Email a day, for the last 15 years. And, another he finds just where he left off, at the Derby- young boys watching horses gallop to the finishing line...
But, life comes without a finishing line, doesn't it? There is no one goal we are chasing. I wonder if we realize that. With money too...
On Friday night though, as I am sitting...the chatter of an oncoming weekend fills the air at a local restaurant. Kebabs on skewers, and dying fires flurry themselves about tables...and here is a meal that costs money. A quiet, comfortable evening with family that comes at a price. And, I think, what a humbling moment. And, what a moment to learn that even money does help us share happiness, sometimes...
I find an unexplainable joy in being able to share money, just sometimes...especially with the very people who've allowed so much of our lives. Will I be able to ever give. No just give back...but give at all.
I do not know. I do not know many answers this Monday night. I am perhaps in a whirlwind of emotions...a flurry of goodbyes...and off to a promising holiday to the hills of Assam.
Chai, anybody?
[More Monday Musings here ]
Monday, January 04, 2010
Monday Musings - 30
And, so it is, a beautiful Monday, in a brand new year! I am all kinds of delirious today. Delirious from the wind that blows through rickshaws, and celebrations for friends that are leaving, and ones that are still here, and from weddings of childhood sweethearts.
There is something all too beautiful about watching true love come alive. Watching it culminate, and begin again in the promise of marriage. Our friends from Australia, R and C found each other in 1998. Their love blossomed, survived the trials and temptations of time, and ten years later, they came to India to marry.
At the ceremony, the groom's father among other things said: "There is no greater force in this world than the force of true love." It is true, true love can conquer all. Fears, and boundaries, and cultures, and everyday life, and troubles, and sadness, and what not. I am often tempted to believe otherwise, but there is something about watching the father of the bride, a couple in love, and their smiles and tears...and knowing that there is a such a thing as true love.
But, what I really want to tell you about is the brother of the bride, 24-year-old Ro. He is autistic. He and I became friends in the summer of the same year R met C, 1998. We did a lot of whatever he liked to at home in Brisbane, Australia. But, he doesn't remember.
As I watch him, across the green grass...the sprawling lawns just before the winter sea, I wonder if maybe, just maybe he remembers? And, I wonder more so, if he knows. Knows that his beloved, beautiful, affectionate sister is leaving her house, for another. Does he know his sister is getting married?
The next day, it is as if I have found my answer. A ceremony of sorts concludes...and the couple are congratulated and blessed. And, just as the announcement is made, Ro claps. Restless, pacing ..he now claps. The crowd roars.
It is as if he now knows. As the evening goes on...and my thoughts meander from the beauty of true love between the couple, and the selfless love for a handicapped child... I find Ro again. He is no longer pacing...but is now seated alone in a corner...affectionately holding on to passerby's hands. Perhaps, he does know, I realize...
And, I smile.
[Last year in Monday Musings here ]
There is something all too beautiful about watching true love come alive. Watching it culminate, and begin again in the promise of marriage. Our friends from Australia, R and C found each other in 1998. Their love blossomed, survived the trials and temptations of time, and ten years later, they came to India to marry.
At the ceremony, the groom's father among other things said: "There is no greater force in this world than the force of true love." It is true, true love can conquer all. Fears, and boundaries, and cultures, and everyday life, and troubles, and sadness, and what not. I am often tempted to believe otherwise, but there is something about watching the father of the bride, a couple in love, and their smiles and tears...and knowing that there is a such a thing as true love.
But, what I really want to tell you about is the brother of the bride, 24-year-old Ro. He is autistic. He and I became friends in the summer of the same year R met C, 1998. We did a lot of whatever he liked to at home in Brisbane, Australia. But, he doesn't remember.
As I watch him, across the green grass...the sprawling lawns just before the winter sea, I wonder if maybe, just maybe he remembers? And, I wonder more so, if he knows. Knows that his beloved, beautiful, affectionate sister is leaving her house, for another. Does he know his sister is getting married?
The next day, it is as if I have found my answer. A ceremony of sorts concludes...and the couple are congratulated and blessed. And, just as the announcement is made, Ro claps. Restless, pacing ..he now claps. The crowd roars.
It is as if he now knows. As the evening goes on...and my thoughts meander from the beauty of true love between the couple, and the selfless love for a handicapped child... I find Ro again. He is no longer pacing...but is now seated alone in a corner...affectionately holding on to passerby's hands. Perhaps, he does know, I realize...
And, I smile.
[Last year in Monday Musings here ]
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